


Reason

by bananaquit



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Backupsmore University, Bullying, Gen, Nosebleed, college ford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 20:11:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13255752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bananaquit/pseuds/bananaquit
Summary: Ford looks for an explanation.





	Reason

He has a bloody nose again. It’s the third time this month. The fifth time this semester. The ninth time this year. He scratches the numbers with a pen into the bricks surrounding him, looking for some pattern in the data, anything. There’s nothing.

Ford is an ugly crier. He knows this. He hates this. He hates the way his sobs always hitch in his chest, giving him the illusion of control for just a moment and then yanking it away. The same ugly, strangled cry always bursts out anyway, no matter how hard he tries to keep it in. He can’t stop the fractured noises that escape him between heaving breaths. 

Thankfully, the whirring of the miscellaneous machinery around him masks the sound of his sobbing to anyone who might happen to pass by. He’s sandwiched between the pipes and tubes and concrete that he assumes provide the science hall with its barely-functioning utilities. It’s a spot he’s visited too many times before, tucked neatly behind the stairwell, hidden from view. He spends a lot more time here than he should, curled up in the darkness, pressed against the cold metal and walls.

He tells himself he’s not hiding, but he knows he is. He’s good at hiding, but not good enough. Not good enough to avoid the kind of attention that caused him to end up here. Not good enough to escape the gaze of the sharp-eyed boys who cornered him behind the building after chemistry.

He tucks his knees up to his chest and folds his arms on top of them, buries his face in his rust-colored sweater sleeves and lets the blood stain the fabric. Normally, he wouldn’t allow this to happen, but he doesn’t feel like trying to stop the steady drip of scarlet anymore. 

He doesn’t feel like trying to do much of anything anynore, but he has work to do. There’s a lab report he needs to write tonight. There’s fifth-dimensional calculus homework. He could be studying for his quantum phase theory exam. _Get up_ , he tells himself. _You can’t prove them wrong unless you get up_. He doesn’t get up. 

There has to be a logical explanation for all this. There has to be some sort of reason. He stares at the marks he’s scratched on the wall again. There’s still no answer. There’s still no reason. He likes to think maybe it has something to do with fate, but right now, it’s hard to believe he has any destiny beyond this hiding spot, beyond the smell of stone and steam, beyond his six-fingered hands.


End file.
